The last time we checked on the saga of Pamela Price, the Soros-backed, super-work District Attorney for Alameda County in California, recall efforts for her and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao were officially placed on the November ballot.
Before this move, and to stem the tsunami of crime plaguing the region, Gov. Gavin Newsom dispatched attorneys to help prosecute drug crimes in Oakland.
Newsom has now rescinded the offer.
“Despite our outreach, your office has yet to make use of these resources,” Newsom’s Cabinet Secretary Ann Patterson wrote in a letter to Price’s office, obtained exclusively by POLITICO on Wednesday, informing her they would redeploy the attorneys to the California Department of Justice….Newsom’s reversal deals a high-profile blow to Price as she fights a recall election fueled by concerns about crime. The aggressive intervention also opens an unusually public rift between a publicly elected prosecutor and the state’s most powerful politician, underscoring how crime has become a volatile and divisive issue for California Democrats.Anxiety about public safety has convulsed Oakland’s politics, with both Price and the city’s Mayor Sheng Thao — who was also the target of a recent FBI raid — facing recall votes in November. The city’s crime rates surged in 2023 even as they fell in other large California cities, prompting Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta to offer the prosecutors and dispatch California Highway Patrol officers earlier this year to assist police.While police statistics showed Oakland’s public safety picture was improving earlier this year, recent media reports have cast doubt on the veracity of that data. And even as crime rates remain well below historic peaks, incidents like carjackings and a shooting at a popular lake last month have fed a pervasive public perception that the East Bay city is backsliding.
For some reason, Newsom seems to be now interested in addressing the serious crime problem in California.
The timing of the announcement may not be a coincidence. KTVU’s report mentioned that Newsom would be in Oakland Thursday morning to announce some “increasing efforts to crack down on crime in the East Bay.”A snippet of that Thursday morning appearance is seen above, with Newsom saying, “We’re going to move the Highway Patrol from 42 shifts that they’re currently operating in Oakland, we’re going to increase that four-fold. We’re going to have 162 shifts starting next week.”
Meanwhile, Price denies that this is a rebuke by Newsom and that she is being judged on misinformation.
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price denied claims in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Thursday news conference about the ability of her office to prosecute crime in the county. Newsom announced Thursday that his office would rescind its offer to send state prosecutors to the county to assist the District Attorney’s Office’s caseload, saying Price’s office was uncooperative….Price addressed Newsom’s statements in her own weekly press conference Thursday, which was live-streamed on the social media platform X.“I cannot speak to the governor’s disappointment,” Price said. “I’m disappointed that the governor did not reach out to me directly and I’m disappointed that the governor did not acknowledge the efforts that our office is making.”In particular, Price denied Newsom’s claims about the staffing of the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force. Newsom said the narcotics unit no longer had any personnel because its lead prosecutor, Michael Nieto, had left Price’s office.Nieto was appointed by Newsom last month to be a judge, but Price said he remains on her staff for the time being and has not indicated a final day of employment.“The governor is misinformed, apparently,” Price said about Nieto’s employment status.
While Newsom claims he has no interest in replacing Biden on the 2024 presidential ballot, if that position opened up, the California governor is term-limited and can’t seek reelection in 2026.
If Newsom has presidential aspirations for 2028, he will be judged on his legacy. So far, that legacy related to crime does not look promising.
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